<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I’m applying for the Musical Theater program at Carnegie Mellon, and was wondering what current students could tell me about student life there. Are theatre kids isolated from the rest of the student body? Is it a suitcase school (all the kids leave on the weekends?). What are the most common activities to do over the weekend- party, drink, greek life, school-planned things? And how many musicals/plays are done per year by the department?</p>
<p>Thanks so much!</p>
<p>I’m not sure many of the current CMU MTs are still looking at College Confidential so I hope a jr MT parent’s comments might help a bit. But, I won’t pretend to know the full social life of my son!
You can certainly get involved in any number of CMU student life activities, especially those that connect to your residence hall because those are regularly organized by your floor RA. Greek life is not a frequent choice by actors and MTs, partly because it takes its own large amount of time and partly because it is a lifestyle choice that most of the drama kids dislike. That said, don’t feel you can’t check it out. There are many social events, both school-based and student organized within the department and you will get to know everyone enrolled in the drama school, especially the performance majors. Because the actors/MTs are the majority of your classmates in your required performance classes, these are people you will know the best among them. Most actor/MTs live in university housing for no more than two years and, when they move off campus, it is usually with people from the department and often into apartments that have previously been rented by others in the drama school. People are too busy to go away on weekends very often so it is definitely NOT a suitcase school! Even though you will not be performing in CMU drama school shows until your junior year, you will have tech responsibilities for shows during the first two years so your time commitments parallel those of the older students who are on stage. As a freshman and sophomore, you do have the option (encouraged) of organizing a performance for Playground, held early in spring term. You have a week off from classes to finalize the production and put it up by week’s end. These are well supported by the full school and, depending on the performance type, by the campus at large. Some MTs also join the music school’s choirs or jazz ensembles, which gets you into additional contact with singers outside the MT group. Others are involved in religious groups, community service, working at the “Waffle Shop” (check it out online) and other non-drama things.
I hope you’re getting the idea that you will be busy! Your classes start (first two years) early every weekday, and your day is pretty well filled with class hours four of the five days. When you have tech, you also have your evenings and Saturdays committed. Weekends are available for exploring Pittsburgh and there will be drama-school based parties that, yes, have drinking. However, the kids who are focused on being successful see through some painful examples that a party orientation can derail your CMU progress (you can be asked to take a year off if you aren’t meeting expectations, and coming back is just about as hard as getting in initially).
All that said, for the kids I’ve met, including the grads, this school and its strong community of faculty and student networking, both social and professional, has been a great choice.</p>
<p>Hi BobBrown,</p>
<p>I’m Lindsay, and i’m a sophomore MT at Carnegie Mellon. To answer some of your questions, honestly yes we are isolated from the rest of the student body, but that’s not to say that you can’t have friends outside of the school of drama! One of my closest friends is an information systems major. And while I don’t get to see him too often, we still talk all the time, and he comes over to my building to hang with me!
It’s not really a suitcase school. I personally leave on the weekends to visit my boyfriend who goes to Columbia University in the city, and a lot of my classmates go to the city all the time to go see shows. It’s only a 6 hr drive, or a 45 minute flight.
We mostly hang out together on the weekends, we do throw a mean party, but we’re too busy on the weekdays to do it, so our weekends are a really good time for us to blow off our weekly steam. That’s not to say that we’re a massive party program, because we’re not. It’s really the first week back that is the party time haha!
We have 4 mainstage shows. 3 dramas and a musical, but there are over 20 smaller scale productions that we do each year, which isn’t including playground which is a week long theater festival that we do each year. It’s an incredible experience. They cancel theater classes for the week so you can rehearse your proposed pieces and from thursday night on til sunday night, it is just NONSTOP theater. It is truly an incredible experience.
I hope this gives you some insight to your questions, if you have anymore don’t hesitate to ask!!</p>